


~.-|^*_Panorama_*^|-.~c`

by sonshineandshowers



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Logic puzzle, Mystery, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers
Summary: The team is processing a scene. Each of their perspectives combine to complete the puzzle. A mystery of logic puzzles you, the reader, piece together as you read to create the full picture. A conceptual piece.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	~.-|^*_Panorama_*^|-.~c`

####  **~**

He exits the warehouse to the park, the door catching and slowly closing behind him. He stands tall from her vantage point, his posture carrying the confidence of a cat sauntering for its prey. Eyes drift from the bench, to the water, to the trees she sits under.

Breeze is strong enough to tip a bit of the leaves, his hair strands that break free. His arms swing, too impatient to stay still when there’s so much ground to cover.

Her red breast puffs, sighting the best trajectory. Not the building. Not the car. Not the stray people wandering near the river.

In a moment, his misstep in a dance turns into a face plant into the sidewalk.

She flies away, squawking.

####  **.**

She’s looking under the bench at evidence markers. Five, twenty-two, seven, her eyes continue over to the garbage can. Drips of blood scattered in a slashing rage, landing on surfaces, stray debris.

A small boat cruises along the river, two guys in the back shouting, partying in the early afternoon. She hasn’t been on a boat lately. Maybe she should go. Does she know anyone with a boat?

Six, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen drops leading away from the building, down toward the river. A path that ends in the grass and travels who knows where.

She hears the gunshot and hits the ground, training kicking in looking for the source. People screaming, running in uncharted directions.

She takes cover behind the garbage can and looks back toward the building, finding a puddle of blood creeping toward her.

####  **-**

She’s resting at the tapeline, her job done, only waiting for the all clear to move the victim from the sidewalk. Sweat pools under her blue, button up jacket - she’s melting in the high sun.

Kids shout and tumble after each other, tossing a frisbee. Couples, parents, singles mingle around the park, going about their days. She's envious of their time under the trees - she could go for some shade.

Where the victim’s head was expected to lay was a box. Head still inside, yet significantly more detached. No longer useful, her brain reminds she’s disconnected herself. What would she look like in a box?

The door swings open and he steps out, their other teammate hidden, then revealed down the sidewalk. He's perfect taking in every aspect of the scene, his eyes shining under beams from the sky.

She jumps out of her skin at the cannon going off and watches her friend collapse. There isn’t an exit wound, blood only crawls out from under his chest. The sun lied - the day was very, very dark.

####  **|**

He’s inside the building completing a walkthrough of the victim’s typical day: packing parcels for delivery to the neighborhood. Pick list, pack, tape, out. Pick list, pack, tape, out. Their steps stretch on like the tape to roll them back to the door.

"Pick and pack beats outside," he complains of the heat.

"You couldn't sit still long enough," he retorts, hanging back for a second glance at the package storage bin. Could the killer have hid inside?

A pop snaps his spine upright, and he shelters in place behind the door, waiting to hear another. It doesn’t come. Only a moment’s hesitation separated them, out to in.

A check through the window, and he opens the door into the daylight to feet, pants, a jacket, tufts of hair scattered out from his head on the ground. He’s quiet - an awful sound.

####  **^**

He’s at the car, radioing they’re going to be at least another hour, probably two before they can help with a second investigation. That please, hold tight, they’ll be with them as soon as they can. That he knows it’s not ideal, but it’s the best he’s got until they invent teleportation.

They don’t find that funny. A very important cadaver, they dangle back at him. But they have an equally important victim right in front of them. A team he needs to speak to instead of this goddamn tin can transmission.

His head pounds from the boisterous children, wilting in the heat. Two scenes to get through before he can go home and lay down in the dark. He might not take off his shoes first, just pitch into his bed. Dead to the world.

He closes the door and starts toward the building when a crack fires from behind him. He sees him drop and scrambles back into the car. The radio shakes in his hand: “I have a 10-13 - shots fired - I need an ambulance and police assistance. Active shooter."

####  *****

After learning every step of package delivery, he sets out to the victim’s daily lunch activity in the park. Perhaps the killer was waiting for her on the bench. Perhaps they had escaped by way of a boat. Perhaps they had sprinted back through the trees.

He contemplates each of the options, swinging _Better When I’m Dancin’_ while he focuses on the sight lines. The spot is pretty out in the open, full visibility to the river, the rest of the park, the street that continues from the dead end.

It’s fire, blooming from his chest in a visceral plume that brings him to his knees. He thinks maybe he can hold himself up, but then his face is on the sidewalk, a bird squawking above him.

Sunshine.

####  **_**

Craft a murder that will call in Major Crimes. Stand by for the team to process the scene. Breathe through each moment until the time arrives that he’s separate enough so he’s the only casualty. The rifle rests against her shoulder, waiting for the profiler to exit the building.

In a plastic house on the playground, shuttered for repair. _Coming Soon Spring 2021_ is the perfect hideout summer 2020. Complete with a window and overlooking trees.

His jacket and tie give him away. She stills in the opening, waiting for him to clear the woman who stands at the edge of the scene.

She doesn’t hear anything, ear protection and focus drowning out everything but the kick and his fall. She leaves behind the muffs and heavy gun and gets up from where she lays on the ground, running away with the raucous of screams that come swarming back to her.

####  **~.-|^*_**

The difference between chaos and intent looks like an unmarked path and a straight line. The people out midday scatter everywhere, thinking they are in the middle of a mass shooting, a terror attack, a bomb - they have no idea.

“Gil, blue shirt, black baseball cap, behind you headed for the tree line at the fence,” JT hollers into his phone.

Gil relays the message over the radio to two other officers at the perimeter of the scene. The three of them scan through all the people to try to find the person JT had described. Pulse firing, his eyes dart in double time, parsing bodies quicker than he can register - pure instinct.

Some crouch at the trees when they realize they can’t get through the fence. Some keep running thinking they can find another way that will take them further from the shooter. One disappears through it.

Gil gestures toward what he perceives is an opening, and they cover each other, finding their way into an alleyway on the other side. Screeching is only somewhat buffered by the fencing. Sweat drips from Gil’s hairline and into his brow, between his shoulders bolstering his stance. Further down the alley he sees dark jeans, a purple shirt, a ponytail, and a black baseball cap. _Her_.

At Gil’s signal, they take off after her, vengeance for his kid fueling superpowered steps so he can cross the extra distance. They chase until she hits the pavement under one of the officer’s tackles, a hard thwack amongst heaving breaths. “You are under arrest.”

* * *

With the sidewalk more crimson than grey, Bright can’t be alive. He’s a matching corpse, head to foot with the victim. JT turns him over and presses into the wound on the right side of his chest with all of his strength, blood seeping in the crevices between his fingers. Dani slides in beside him, checking his pulse and breathing. It takes Edrisa several moments to break out of shock, but then she steps in from the tape and hands JT her jacket. 

“Dispatch says Gil already called for a bus,” Dani relays, her fingers staying behind holding the side of his face. “We’re still looking at two minutes.”

“He doesn’t _have_ two minutes,” JT barks, his time ticking down in viscous fluid spilling out of the hourglass.

The little color left drains from Edrisa’s face. “Go meet the ambulance.” Dani directs to the turnaround. “Bring them straight here.”

JT’s and Dani’s eyes connect, dread floating on the stale air. Wanting to hear any fact in place of his blood spewing to the ground. Urging the ambulance to travel faster than the laws of physics would allow.

* * *

They collide at Gil’s car, yet reuniting doesn’t give a chance for a breath. Gil strides as he reaches the end, announcing, “We’ve got her.”

“We got him in the ambulance,” JT shares, his hands hidden behind his back.

“Alive,” Dani adds the information that brings relief to Gil’s eyes.

“We need to go,” Gil says, but rattles in place.

“They need all of our statements,” Dani refutes. As much as she wants to run to her friend, she needs his attacker to stay in prison.

“ _You_ need to go.” JT directs him toward one of the patrol cars that had pulled up. “Anderson, I need you to take Lieutenant Arroyo to the hospital.”

Gil fishes in his pocket to hand over his keys. “I’ll take good care of her. You take care of him. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” JT assures, reaching for them.

Yet the keys go into Dani’s hand, JT realizing his mistake when horror crosses Gil’s face.

####  **c**

He holds the table. Three voices reverberate into him. Two of them change when the words bounce off the floor, the walls, the battened window, yet don't seem to get through.

Two wrists rock in his clasp. The beat's more _All I Ask of You_ than _Black Parade_. A subtle clink that no one else hears over their rising questions.

"He killed my dad," she accuses with abysmal precision.

How never makes it through to his metallic clutch. An insinuation of a negotiation gone wrong charges the air in a thick thundercloud that never opens. _A man caught in the crossfire_ , he registers as a baseline.

Why resonates differently in the space depending upon who occupies it. Revenge. A necessary duty. To watch him _bleed_. Her more seething notes provide texture that crunches them into tapping out and muting behind the glass.

A pound across from him shakes her into the rigidity that comes with fear of injury. For a moment. Then she pulls taught, strangling him or herself.

But only one of them is made of steel.

The other shouts each time she's taken away, he carried along with her.

An artifact picked up in the stretch around the room. A piece that won't stay with the rest.

She's locked away with different keys - he returns to an officer's waist.

####  **`**

His blue chest rests in the corner. A gaggle waits by the door, half out, half in, rotating. Every dawn through eventual dusk.

He lays low, breathing, being. Lights decorate the space around him, but there isn’t a celebration. He’s broken, stitched back together, yet not healed enough to warble.

Just out of her reach, yellow and pink flowers rest inside. She taps on the windowsill, the window, a gleam of light pouring through her and into the room, warming the bed.

“Sunshine,” he mumbles, his throat rough.

“Hi, Bright,” he grooms his hair.

One keeps fluttering over the other, giving him water and food. Fixing his nest. Offering a toy with big googly eyes and a fuzzy coat.

She flies away, chirping.

* * *

_fin_


End file.
